The life of a scavenger rat is not laced with romance
by violentmangoes
Summary: Starting at the interrogation scene between Kylo Ren and Rey when Rey angers him and does the only thing she can think of to save her own life afterwards. For now just a oneshot, but may continue if I get a good enough response or feel it needs more.


Rey did not know what had made her do it. She did not know how she had even known what to do, but once he had stepped closer, his fingers outstretched towards her temples, and she could feel him probing her mind with the force. He'd been taunting her with his knowledge of the island she used to sleep at night, and it was as he moved closer determined to extract the information from the piece of the map. Although she knew this piece of map would be just as unhelpful to him as it had been to them; she saw no reason to give him the satisfaction of taking what he wanted from her mind. Kylo Ren did not deserve to see even the surface of her mind. He'd helped himself to her deepest thoughts and invaded her privacy by force and it was this which had angered her. He hadn't simply done his job and taken what he needed, he had gone further and somewhere along the way he had crossed a line.

With this in mind Rey remembered what Maz had said, the pirate may have been peculiar and her gaze may have freaked Ray out a bit, but there was no denying the fact that thing (Rey refused to think the word for what it was) had been calling to her.

As Ren leaned in closer to her once more, his fingers stretching forwards towards her forehead she tried to calm her pounding heart and think of nothing more than shutting him out. The stories of the Jedi had reached even Jakku and Rey had heard the stories of their focus and meditation being used to manipulate the force around them. When she was younger they'd been an escapist story, a necessity for something to take her mind off the growing fear her family would never return to her. Now these stories were her only chance.

Gritting her teeth together she matched the gaze of the monster in front of her and stared him down. Whatever she was doing seemed to be working, she couldn't feel his dark powers roaming her mind like a cold slimy hand, and his frustrated stare made this only too clear.

The elation she felt at outwitting the feared Kylo Ren surprised her, and for a moment her guard slipped, and she could almost feel his presence inside her mind once more. It's icy touch returning almost as soon as her concentration wavered. Setting her mouth in a firm line once more Rey exerted all her thoughts once again into pushing him out, and she began to feel warmth flood her mind once more.

Then, it happened almost all of the sudden she could see images flashing before her mind. There was a young boy with the same pale face and tormented eyes as the man before her who was bowed down low before something she could not see. He was murmuring apologies and promises to do better. Then he was bent over something she could not quite make out in the dim light. However she did hear his words, "I will finish what you started" and then as he moved away to leave she finally caught a glimpse of the thing he was looking down at. The mask of Darth Vadar. Albeit a battered destroyed mask, but still his mask.

It was as the other images came flooding in quicker and quicker that Rey pieced together what was going on. Her anger burned so great for him after witnessing him slaughtering innocent people all in the name of some bizarre obsession with a being more machine than man that she spat out words of malice back at him. It was the only thing she could think of to do. To keep reminding him of exactly how pathetic he was, wearing a mask and dressing in the black suits already made famous in the galaxy by Darth Vadar. She could see from the look in his eyes as he stared at her that she was hitting a never, but this only spurred her on more, her anger at what she had seen clouding her judgement. If she had not been so angry she would have thought how stupid it was to anger such an unstable man as Kylo Ren by mocking his insecurities regarding his success at continuing the work of Vadar.

Suddenly she felt her mind become abruptly disconnected with his as he wrenched himself away from her and moved to gaze down at her with fury. Righting himself he moved in for what she presumed to be "the kill".

His jaw was set and a vein throbbing near his temple, and Rey knew she had reached the end. She had goaded him with her taunts and had somehow invaded his thoughts with her own mind and knew that he would not be the sort of man willing to let that go unpunished.

And that was why as he moved in stealthily like a predator ready to kill his prey she did that only thing she could think of.

She kissed him.

It was difficult in these restraints to reach up to him, however she struggled against them, seeing it as her only hope. Rey had never kissed anybody before, the life of a scavenger rat was not laced with romance, and her awkward movements would have surely made this clear. She did not know exactly what she was supposed to do with her lips once they were attached to his, and she could only hope that somehow her pathetic kissing skills would throw him off balance long enough for the resistance to find them or for them to get the map far away or… anything. She wasn't too sure exactly what she was kissing him for anymore, and she also didn't know why she was still kissing him. Did it even qualify as kissing somebody if your feet and wrists were strapped down and you neck was straining with the effort of craning upwards? Admittedly she had never been kissed before so she was not altogether sure what it was supposed to be like… But surely it was not meant to be painful.

Just as she was thinking this and was about to break it off she felt his lips move beneath her own, and for a moment all she could do was freeze up in shock.

She had kissed Kylo Ren... But more importantly, he was kissing her back. Realising she was throwing away an opportunity she responded at once to his kiss and feeling his hand near hers she placed her fingertips atop of the gloved hand and allowed them to rest there. He moved his other hand up to her head, his hand cupping her cheek… gently. That was not a word she had ever thought to attribute to the man she had thought of as a monster not two minutes ago. Did this change anything? She wondered to herself as he parted her mouth with his own. It worried her that her answer was not as clear cut as it should have been. For now she decided not to dwell upon it. Whatever this was, it was keeping her alive.

They parted clumsily for breath, and she opened her eyes (although she couldn't remember closing them) to see him looming above her, his eyes conflicted, raw emotion being displayed in them. Something soft and almost warm looking replacing the cold hard gaze he had previously worn.

It seemed as though they were frozen in a moment, neither breaking it as they looked at each other, breathing gradually returning to normal, though Rey's chest still heaved with anticipation of what his reaction would be.

She could almost see the blank eyes returning to him as he straightened up, his hand gone from her cheek and his hand jerking from under hers as with a billow of his black cloak he was gone. A storm trooper entered the room in his absence, the doors closing to leave her alone in the room with the clone.

What had just happened? Rey didn't quite know or understand fully the implications of it all, but she knew one thing.

He was a damn god kisser, she thought as she pressed her lips together without even thinking about it, trying to keep his kiss inside her.


End file.
